When it comes to the recovery of a patient, no matter how small an improvement is, there is still a level of improvement that is taking place. Something as subtle as the blink of an eye can be a monumental milestone because in that split second you are witnessing a speck of light in a world that had the possibility of remaining in complete darkness.

Two of the most notable books published in the U.S. in 2013 "trouble" readers with medical, ethical, moral, emotional, psychological and legal struggles that arise when a loved one is succumbing to insidious pain and irreversible incapacity.

Death panels and Dr. Kevorkian suck the oxygen out of end of life discussions. In a way, framing death and dying in sweeping abstractions like "right to die" and "rationing life" is an easy way to avoid the subject. But bad end-of-life decisions plague the hospital setting.